From the mind of Mary Purdy: A collection of true personal essays, creative outbursts, humorous monologues and other sundry offerings that necessitated translating ideas and whims from the brain onto the keyboard.

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1/31/12

Really F*#king Busy

How are you? Busy.
Really busy. How are things? Good,
but busy. Busy. So busy.
Things have been so busy. I have
no time. It’s gotten so busy. Wow, you
sound busy. I am! I’m busy.
How’s Frank? Good. Busy. The
kids? Great. Busy. Can we have coffee
this week? Hmmmm, this week is kind of busy.
Can you do next week? Oh, that week is really busy for me.
Boy, we sure are busy. Crazy
busy. Oh, yeah, it’s been crazy! The
week, month, year, holidays have been crazy. I’ve been swamped. Totally nutty
around here. Really fucking busy. But good. Busy and good. But mostly busy.

I haven’t had a chance to pee/sleep/ read/ shower, eat, do
what I love, take a poop, brush my teeth. I’m up to my ears, my neck, my
eyeballs. That’s right, I’m on duty, on the job, on the move, on the run, on
the road, on the go.

Have you had time to GET busy? Are you kidding? I’m WAY too
busy to GET busy.

I’m hard at it, I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, too much
on my plate, I’m knee deep. I’m up to my ears busy. I’d love to stay and talk but I’m
just so gosh darned busy.

When was the last time you asked someone how they were and
didn’t get a response that included, “Busy”? We thrive on the busy. We brood about the busy. We complain and boast about the busy, even
when it’s not that significant. Pretty
much anything that occupies our time makes us busy.

“I completely lost
track of time, I was so busy knitting and changing the batteries in the
flashlight.”

How were your holidays? Great. Busy! Insane! Relaxing, but
very busy. We were going to call, but things just got so busy! Vacations are so busy. We weren’t really doing
anything but it ended up being really busy.

Aren’t holidays supposed to be, well, holidays? Meaning that
we’re not busy because we’re on holiday, which is the very thing you do when
life becomes too busy?

Here’s the thing. It has now become necessary to say that you
are busy. ‘Cause you know what you are if you’re not busy? Lazy. No one respects the lazies. No one is interested in hearing about what
the lazies have not been doing. If we don’t talk about being busy, people are
left to assume that we’re just hanging around with our thumbs up our….noses, which
does not constitute busy-ness. No one wants to be thought of as lazy because
it usually means that our lives aren’t important. And busy is important. Busy means that we are someone. If we’re engaged with more things than we could
possibly have time for, then there’s
clearly an abundance of people and
things that are desiring of our attention, which must mean that we’re either
extremely important or just really busy.

Sometimes we acknowledge the craziness of it all. “I’m ridiculously busy.” “I’m insanely busy.” “Can you believe how busy I am?” “It’s out of control how busy life is.”

You know what? I count myself as one of these people who are
too busy. And yes, I talk about it. I admit it. I use it as my alibi. “I’m
sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I’ve been so… busy.” “I missed your call because I was…..busy.” “I couldn’t make the party. Things got too
busy.” It’s like a badge I wear that allows me to
excuse myself from almost anything. And
people seem to understand. “Oh, you were busy? I get it. I’ve been busy, too.” I would like to not be
busy but I can’t seem to find a way around it. I probably shouldn’t even be here right now,
I’m so busy. Sitting here and writing this is way more time than I can afford. One thing that has kept me busy is trying to complete
this piece. I’ve been too busy to write
this piece because I’ve been so busy writing this piece.